Everyone's a Critic

 I listened to the Everyone's a Critic episode.

The episode is split into 3 parts to cover the different motivations and perspectives that ultimately result in an opinion or judgement.

1) B.A. Parker tells us that the new church she attends welcomes everyone. And subsequently that means European travelers come visit her church and observe the gospel music and sermon. These travelers then leave reviews of the church's quality and their experience.

I think ratings on a church by onlookers is strange; it highlights the church to be almost like an attraction, a tourist area to be checked off of someone's bucket list. Ratings give off an unnatural feeling and categorizes something like a person's worshipping to be tangible when it is spiritual. 

Its ironic that our need to give opinions and reviews about the products we buy, our consumerism, has extended towards places like these. As a society we have become so detached to the connections built and focus on the features and benefits of anything that attract us(or bore us). The church in these reviews almost sounds like an object that a person has bought and casually reviewed. So why can someone still express their opinion on a sensitive topic like this? 

This concept of reviewing and not restricting opinion is more deeply covered in the second section. The concept of free speech. 

2) Mr. Chen, a mainland China citizen, reports on the Hong Kong protests. His videos remain factual as he knows China's communist government will potentially put him and his family in danger for the media he is creating. Mr. Chen then traveled to Wuhan at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. As he tries to remain impartial, he cannot because of the horrors he witnesses in Wuhan: people dying because the hospital doesn't have enough healthcare resources, individuals witnessing their own parent's death before their eyes.

This section was extremely thought-provoking, and it juxtaposes the first story. It emphasizes the importance of free speech, independence, and reviews. Reviews of a government, or of anything, come from the moral compass of its citizens. The more I think about it, the cause that provokes a review is because something that is learned or created from the experience. 

These scenes eerily repeat in the US a few months later. The hospitals in New York, Detroit fill over capacity, with people lining up for days to get tested. There are not enough masks for healthcare and essential workers, and they still risk their lives to protect us.

And that has provoked so many opinions and reviews, because Americans have the freedom to voice their concerns. As a result, we see the injustice in our system clearer; we see the institutional instability of the US government and regulations, and most importantly we are able to express what we are witnessing.

Reviews are not always bad, in fact, they will often allow greater consciousness and improvement in the society. We learn from other's opinions and from our own as well.

Some cartoons of how everyone's a critic